Talk:Henry F. Pulitzer

Overturning (?) the 2015 AfD
How? Why? Anyone interested should see this. -- Hoary (talk) 06:48, 26 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I would agree with Sandstein that the distinction between the article as it appeared during the 2015 AfD and the article as it stands today speaks for itself. BD2412  T 15:59, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

"F."?
Was he more often called Henry F. Pulitzer, or Henry Pulitzer? -- Hoary (talk) 06:56, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how best to measure this, but I would note that Newspapers.com gets 254 hits for "Henry F. Pulitzer", and 603 hits for "Henry Pulitzer", but so far as I can tell, all of those for the name including the middle initial are for this article subject, while those without the middle initial include a high proportion of other subjects (particularly sentences where William A. Henry III is described as a Pultizer-prize winner). Without hand-sorting them, I'd say that the several hundred hits with the middle initial justify its inclusion. BD2412  T 16:20, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I would also note, by the way, that a substantial proportion of references describe the subject as "Dr.", though I have found no source indicating where he received a doctorate. BD2412  T 16:48, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Good. Let's not retitle the article, or anyway not do so until there appears some pressing reason for doing so. -- Hoary (talk) 21:59, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Publisher?
, we read that our man was "an Austrian-born publisher", and of "his success as a publisher". Worldcat shows that his book Where is the Mona Lisa? was published by the "Pulitzer Press", but doesn't make it at all easy to see which other books (if any) came out from this publisher. By contrast it is easy to poll Library Hub Discover (for British university libraries); this shows no second book. How was he a publisher? (Did he perhaps use a different imprint for books written by other people?) -- Hoary (talk) 08:02, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I was paraphrasing the description provided by Isbouts, but I don't recall coming across any source regarding another book published by the "Pulitzer Press", or by Pulitzer under another imprint. BD2412  T 16:31, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * This is strange. I wonder if something got garbled somewhere. Wild and worthless speculation: As an art dealer, he was pressed to promote his wares. "Promoter" became "publicist"; "publicist" became "publisher". Perhaps somebody with access to Isbouts' book will start to elucidate. Meanwhile, thank you for taking this out of the lead. -- Hoary (talk) 22:08, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I would guess that it stems from his having self-published his book—bearing in mind that self-publishing a book in the 1960s would have been a vastly different proposition than self-publishing a book today. BD2412  T 22:22, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, certainly a possibility. -- Hoary (talk) 22:58, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think I may have found the solution to this question. According to this 1953 article on photography in advertising, "Pulitzer Studios of Kensington are the other 'all colour' firm. A recent development is the teaming-up of Eugene Vernier, the outstanding French fashion photographer, with Dr. Henry F. Pulitzer, who, in recent years, has done much technical development work in colour and other fields. Both Pulitzer Studio Ltd. — which has a useful studio set construction unit — and Eugene Vernier Ltd. retain their individual services, but the facilies of studios and colour processing at 5 Kensington High Street will henceforth be common to both". In other words, Pulitzer was a publisher, just not of books (until he published his own book). BD2412  T 15:04, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it's just caffeine deficiency (or senility),, but this confuses me. It seems from this conclusion to an article that Doc Pulitzer was running a rental studio designed with color in mind and a color processing lab (and probably darkroom, and color-diapositive-into-print services), and then complemented this with a modeling/photography service. Rather as, say, binding is necessary for book publication, Pulitzer's services would all have been needed for the publication of (exotic and expensive) color adverts; but just as I wouldn't call a book binder a kind of book publisher, from what I read here I wouldn't call Pulitzer a kind of photo or advert publisher. This might be cleared up if I could read the earlier part of that article. (I tried but wasn't able to display it.) Or again "publisher" might refer to some other aspect of his career. But putting aside the "publisher" claim, this is a good find. -- Hoary (talk) 22:32, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * This could result from confusion between Pulitzer initially being, basically, a printer, rather than a publisher in the book publishing field. The beginning part of the article is available on Internet Archive if you create an account there (which is free) and check out the work (also free). It is not particularly elucidating; primarily, it outlines certain ads that the author thinks are particularly good examples, and notes the benefit of using color in advertising, which only a few studios are able to provide. BD2412  T 23:11, 28 July 2022 (UTC)